|
I joined a 5e game recently and rolled up a 5th-level monk fashioned after a old-time carnival strongman, twirly mustache and all. Low INT but full of excitement to be out with “real adventuring types.” We had to sneak our way down a steep 250’ incline, and I roll a natural 1. The DM decides that this represents my character tripping and falling down the incline, and tells me that I take nearly 100 points of falling damage—as if I had fallen out of the sky rather than bounced down. Even factoring in my slow fall ability, the damage was enough to kill me outright. The DM suggested I could make a different character that would be available “after the end of this adventure” which would be 6-8 weeks away. I thanked the group for their time and logged off. I heard from another player that the party wizard, two turns later, also rolled a 1 and died, but was allowed to re-enter the game as a prisoner held in whatever camp we were trying to infiltrate. Good times!
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 08:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 13:37 |
|
|
Ichabod Sexbeast posted:Is there some mashup where you're on 5th edition rules, but the monsters and NPCs are on AD&D, so you need to roll for THAC0 with advantage or something? I joined a game once like that; a mix of 2nd ed and 5e. Unfortunately, in practice, it turned into the players having to ask on nearly EVERY roll what they needed to roll/add/target number. For 6 hours. That was probably the oddest D&D session I ever played. For various reasons. There were 9 players, representing a troop of 30 dwarves. Our characters were part of a military outfit. This meant that the officer players gave the orders, decided what to do...and all the enlisted players were expected to sit there, not speak until spoken to, and not act until ordered. At one point, we (well, mainly the officers) spent 15 out-of game minutes arguing/puzzling/confused over where we were...literally trying to get from point A to point B. And, after 2+ hours of blundering around, several expendable dwarf deaths, and much lack of communication by players who had no idea what "chain of command" means, we got to the abandoned fort, and got ambushed by shadow creatures, who were resistant to non-magical damage. Only 3 PCs even had magical weapons; the officers. I declined to come back,saying I didn't feel like playing in "Captain Lost and His Many Redshirts" campaign. The people were nice, and the DM put a lot of work into it, but I came to play, not watch. Spending over half the session on standby/out of scene is not my idea of fun.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 08:45
|
|
|
the_steve posted:Doesn't Edge of the Empire do this a bit? SkyeAuroline posted:Yes. From experience it's a neat concept that's awful to have to determine in the moment on every. Single. Roll. That's why West End's Wild Dice system was SO much better - You could have a failure with a bit of success, or a success with a bit of failure. quote:Whenever a wild die comes up as a 2, 3, 4 or 5, just add it into the dice total normally.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 11:22
|
|
|
CobiWann posted:That's why West End's Wild Dice system was SO much better - You could have a failure with a bit of success, or a success with a bit of failure. Unfortunately, in my neck of the woods, if you ask what TTRPGs are available to play, your answer will probably be "Both kinds; D&D and Pathfinder." And I have had poo poo for luck with D&D. Though to be fair, I'm also primarily referencing organized play, and I realized pretty quick there's usually a reason people are playing it instead of in a home game. But yeah, I have the books for a handful of different systems and games, but I've never gotten to play them and probably never will.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 12:09
|
|
|
the_steve posted:Unfortunately, in my neck of the woods, if you ask what TTRPGs are available to play, your answer will probably be "Both kinds; D&D and Pathfinder." You should come here - the ongoing campaigns at my LGS are Dungeons & Dragons and Starfinder!
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 12:19
|
|
|
Sometimes I question why I do so much work for my Sunday game and then their medic jetpacks up to a dragon to hold it off from attack helicoptering the others, jams a stun knife into its eye, and somehow manages to stun and capture it while their Heavy Weapons trooper sidesteps another and blows its heart out with an enchanted magnum while their wizard is being tempted by his own feelings of inadequacy while trying to save his slowly-getting-less-lovely twin brother with healing magic and their Engineer is frantically trying to kill a giant laser crab with landmines and demolition packs while they're being threatened by a pursuing biological horror wizard with a sword the size of a tree and it's like okay, this is why i put in all this prep time.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 13:54
|
|
|
FreshFeesh posted:I joined a 5e game recently and rolled up a 5th-level monk fashioned after a old-time carnival strongman, twirly mustache and all. Low INT but full of excitement to be out with “real adventuring types.” I mean, better than what I would do in that situation, which is probably in this order: Tell the DM that that's bullshit, get in an argument with the DM, Get into an argument with the entire rest of the party as they argue that "The DM's good, you just don't fit in here", and then leave and tell them to gently caress off. Or I'd skip to just leaving and telling them that "This isn't fun."
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 16:49
|
|
|
I, too, like to kill off player characters on meaningless environmental hazards. It makes the game so much more lifelike you see. Edit: I also make my player characters do their taxes and role play trips to the bathroom.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 19:17
|
|
|
Agrikk posted:I, too, like to kill off player characters on meaningless environmental hazards. It makes the game so much more lifelike you see. I'm imagining Sheriff of Nottingham-esque character kicking in a door, saying "this is an audit" with sword drawn, and grinning to reveal a gleaming gold tooth. I would totally be down for that
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 19:37
|
|
|
thecluckmeme posted:I'm imagining Sheriff of Nottingham-esque character kicking in a door, saying "this is an audit" with sword drawn, and grinning to reveal a gleaming gold tooth. I would totally be down for that This but the door belongs to a fantastically wealthy noble who exploits everything he touches, and the player is the auditor Infernal Revenue Service
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 19:48
|
|
|
Phy posted:This but the door belongs to a fantastically wealthy noble who exploits everything he touches, and the player is the auditor I just imagined The Untouchables as a Waterdeep campaign
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 19:57
|
|
|
Sometimes I wonder if I'm not engaging with the material correctly. So, my party returned to an ice cave full of all manner of nastiness and come across a hag-ish looking someone or other stirring a big suspicious pot with a suspiciouser pile of human corpses nearby, and after a failed attempt at smooth talking her, we begin combat. I remember that I have the Grease spell, and she's standing next to an open flame, so I plan the obvious and ask "so, is magical grease just as flammable as mundane" ? Of course it is. The hag rolls high on her initiative and immediately moves (radius of Grease effect+some feet) away from the flame and downs two of our party and severely wounds another with a lightning spell. Well, we stabilize over the course of the fight, and I do manage to grease her, but our raging barbarian oil-wrestling her decides the appropriate thing to do is throw her into the pot. So she fails the athletics check against him and goes right in. Hooray! On her turn she just casually climbs back out after suffering 2 damage from the boiling and lightning blasts us again. Uh, well ok, this isn't going like I imagined. Then she conjures a will o' wisp which thankfully fails some kind of auto-kill roll against our 0 hp healer for two turns. DnD sort of feels like Dark Souls in that I'm occasionally getting slapped by things I just don't mechanically understand, but at least I can still leave crowbar shaped dents in enemy foreheads.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 20:19
|
|
|
Your DM is not improvisation friendly, the issue isn't you at all.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 20:58
|
|
|
So I'm going to post about an incident that eventually led to me leaving a group I'd been playing with for several years. Now I generally try to be a team player. In combat I'm supportive (the two Torg characters I played had abilities that allowed them to buff the rest of the group), I try to get others to express what they think the group should do and I’d go along with the consensus. We'd been playing TORG for a while but in the last few months I'd noticed a lot of passive-aggressive behaviour (a player refusing to accept the possibility points one of the cards allowed me to transfer to him because 'he didn't need my charity'). My character was Billy, an Electric Samurai who also had psionic powers (mainly pyrokinetic to set people on fire) and there was a lot of push back against him. The others in the group seemed shocked that he killed the enemies who attacked us (with lethal force) so I tried to have Billy adopt more of an honourable samurai persona, sparing others and trying to make an effort to show he was trying to fit in with the others in the group. His polar opposite was Jimmy, a Hong Kong cop who tried to arrest people, no matter where in the world we were, and saw Billy as nothing more than a two-bit hood (being a former biker). The big part of Billy's background was that he'd been the leader of biker gang, who'd been wiped out by a rival gang, mainly because Billy's friend had been dating the sister of the rival gang leader. Billy carried a lot of guilt around with him (which he hid behind swagger) and was motivated to join the group of PCs as they were hunting the secret benefactors behind this rival bike gang. The only other survivor was the sister, who Billy was in love with but dare not admit it in memory of his dead friend (and was a patch wearing bad-rear end). The incident came when our group were in Aylse and the bad guys were improbably working with the rival gang leader. There is a big fight which ends in an explosion which knocks all the PCs out. When they recover the big bad villains have escaped but the gang leader, the man who Billy has tracked across the globe to hunt down, is still unconscious. I suggest (as I know this is the final scene of that nights' session) that both Billy and Jimmy, the cop, crawl towards him, one wanting to kill him and the other wanting to arrest him. Jimmy's Player "Huh? Jimmy wouldn't want to kill him." Me: "No, you'd want to arrest him, Billy would want to kill him." Jimmy's Player "Well Jimmy wouldn't allow that." Me: "I know." (I knew Jimmy would have an issue with it which is why I flagged their conflicting motives and wasn't stating Billy was killing him, only that he'd want to. I also thought it would be a good cliff hanger for the session.) GM: "We get it, you want drama." We ended the session there but I put in our game chat that maybe the other players should think how they could persuade Billy not to kill the gang leader, since he had every reason to want that. I even suggested that maybe the group could persuade Billy that keeping the gang leader alive would lead to the villains who were truly responsible for his friends death. Two weeks pass and we start our new session there but the GM revises things, stating that Jimmy had put the gang leader in handcuffs and Billy had still threatened to cut his head off. I stated that wasn't what happened and that I wasn't saying that I wanted Billy to kill the guy (since I could see the rest of the group wanted to keep him alive for some reason) but just wanted to work with them to come up with a reason why Billy wouldn't kill him. Jimmy's player stated that he'd fight Billy if he tried to kill him. I pointed out that Billy could set the gang leader on fire with his mind and there wouldn't be anything Jimmy could do to stop it (and I thought it was telling that after months of adventuring together they were willing to fight Billy to protect a criminal). Billy asked again why he shouldn't kill the man who had killed all his friends, which I hoped would make them realise I'm trying to work with them on this. The GM seemed exasperated and asked how should anyone know what would persuade Billy not to kill the gang leader. I was shocked and asked if anyone had seen what I'd written in the chat. It was clear they had not. I stated again that they could persuade Billy that this would lead to the true culprits. The rest of the group weren't interested in that so the GM asked what else and I wasn't giving them options. I offered that the group knew how Billy felt about the sister and that killing her brother might damage their relationship (even though the sister hated her brother for killing her lover). "But the sister isn't there," the GM interrupted (she'd stayed behind at a nearby village but would rejoin us shortly). "I know but the others still know how he feels about her and that could persuade Billy to spare the gang leaders life for that reason." I said. "So you just expect others to magically know a specific thing to stop you from killing a defenceless prisoner." The GM said. For me this was very frustrating. I'd identified a point of drama, expressed a desired motivation without ever saying I was taking the action (which would have required physical action against Billy) and doing everything I could to work with them to come up with a reasonable narrative why Billy wouldn't kill the man who'd taken everything for him. Instead I felt they saw me as being disruptive and were refusing to listen or understand. The GM skipped ahead so the gang leader was in a Aysle prison, gave up the exposition to lead us to the next part of the plot and then mocked Billy for not killing him. I felt so deflated and it really soured me on the group. I'd played with them for years. They'd said, at points, they were my friends, but the whole experience showed me that there would be no co-operation or collaboration (or fun). Worse their view of me was absolutely the opposite of what I'd been trying to do all along. There were a few more incidents in the following sessions, until a final incident made me leave the group for good (over them lecturing me about how my character should act or behave and then shouting over me when I tried to respond) but this was the incident which signalled the end of a group I'd been with for a long time. I sometimes feel that I picked the 'wrong' character and maybe things would have worked out if I'd been a more formulaic character but I don't know. It feels like their negativity to the character became focused on me and they couldn't see or hear what I was trying to do. etheruk fucked around with this message at 00:14 on May 18, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 21:36
|
|
|
Notable Gaming Experiences: Your DM is not improvisation friendly.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2021 23:32
|
|
|
etheruk posted:GM: "We get it, you want drama." etheruk posted:a player refusing to accept the possibility points one of the cards allowed me to transfer to him because 'he didn't need my charity'  this is so weirdly petty and antithetical to concept of cooperative gaming that I think "what the gently caress is your problem?" would omit my mouth and instead burst through my chest.etheruk posted:The GM seemed exasperated and asked how should anyone know what would persuade Billy not to kill the gang leader Honestly it sounds like that group just fundamentally failed to understand what a TTRPG is actually supposed to be at its core, and were incensed that you were trying to do anything even remotely compelling.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 00:54
|
|
|
FreshFeesh posted:I joined a 5e game recently and rolled up a 5th-level monk fashioned after a old-time carnival strongman, twirly mustache and all. Low INT but full of excitement to be out with “real adventuring types.” This sounds like a pretty cut and dry case of "DM didn't like your character concept and decided to be passive aggressive about it."
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 01:17
|
|
|
the_steve posted:This sounds like a pretty cut and dry case of "DM didn't like your character concept and decided to be passive aggressive about it." The DM was forcing multiple rounds of Athletics-or-die checks, I figure they didn't like anyone's character
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 02:32
|
|
|
I'm honestly surprised. It's been a while since I recall the thread getting a catpiss story and suddenly there's several. I want to break the streak with an amazing session I just had in the 13th Age game I run, but that's going to be a lengthy one. So here's a quick highlight from the 5e Dungeon of the Mad Mage game I joined recently (minor spoilers): I previously alluded to this in an earlier post, but I'm playing a Cleric that was originally an NPC the party hired because they didn't have a healer. Or person over 4 feet tall (The party is all gnomes). Other than my Wood Elf Cleric, there was: A Rogue that was apparently Evil at the start of the campaign but turned Good due to having to strike a deal with Tymora to remove what was apparently a nasty curse. I wasn't there for that session so I don't know all the details. A Barbarian who is supposed to be a Noblewoman but spends all her time kicking down doors. Was originally the party tank by virtue of being the only melee character before I joined. A Wizard that I was certain was going to be a problem as soon as his player described him: "Well he's not really good or bad persay. I mean I haven't intentionally fireballed any friendly people yet." He's actually fine; the only annoying thing he's done is attack a poltergeist I successfully turned because his character probably never saw me Turn Undead before. Anyway, we enter Floor 2 and we almost immediately find a goblin settlement, complete with bazaar. We explore it, meet their ruler, take note of the "Royal Treasury" with shoddily crafted Alarm spell, and come across an Auction. None of us understand Goblin and all we can make out is numbers, so we just watch. Then the next item comes up for auction, and it's a weird potion. I want it, and bid 35 gold for it. The Goblins stop and stare at me, because they didn't recognize the word gold. It's then explained to me that money's no good down here since food is scarcer and therefore more valuable. I'm disappointed, but then I look at my spell list and get excited. Me: "I bid 35 pounds of food!" The entire party:  GM: "Okay you win handily. Where are you getting the food from though? I cast Create Food and Water. Everyone at the auction:  Me: "Anyone want some to go? I've got an extra 10 pounds plus water." I got a potion that raises my AC for 10 minutes and the satisfaction of breaking the settlement's economy. Rogue: "Why are we not just overthrowing their government at this point?" MelvinBison fucked around with this message at 03:01 on May 18, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 02:49
|
|
|
Overthrowing a government by feeding the people isn't a bad idea per se, but it is the kind of thing that puts the campaign on an entirely different track.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 03:31
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:Honestly it sounds like that group just fundamentally failed to understand what a TTRPG is actually supposed to be at its core, and were incensed that you were trying to do anything even remotely compelling. Thanks. I've been going over this in my mind for awhile, wondering if I was in the wrong, so it is good to get some validation. I think you are right. Each session had very much fallen into a formula of exposition/action/fight/repeat and I think that roleplaying was holding things up for them.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 11:09
|
|
|
I love the community in this thread. We all seem to understand the difference between roleplaying games (*~collaborative storytelling~* if you want to be a fancy-pants) and just "games" or "stories." Yawgmoth is right: RPGs need "drama," otherwise they would be video games. They also need improvisation from the players and flexibility from the GM, otherwise they would be books. Fivemark's post highlights a certain genre of catpiss story that is about a disconnect between the GM's perception of RPGs, and the player's perception. It's a real bummer and the folks in this thread are proof that a better world exists. It's easier said than done for me to say "hang in there and find a better group," when I am already fortunate enough to be settled in with the large, rotating group I've played with since college 20 years ago. That gets at why I think there are so many horror stories about random groups on Roll20 and elsewhere. Most of the good players and GMs already have a group they're playing with. Selection Bias is the term, I think. The folks left on those places are either unfortunate orphans who have yet to find a good group, or people who perpetually drive other players away with their toxic play style. Fivemark is the former, and he keeps finding the latter. Good groups, by and large, aren't on boards looking for randos. I wish there was more I could do about situations like this, but I don't have time to play in a second game. The best I can offer occasionally is a seat at a game I'm already in that has a vacancy open up. If anyone ITT is interested, I can post here if and when a vacancy opens up, which isn't common but does happen. My DM was running 5E Dungeon of the Mad Mage with five players, but one guy recently had to drop out due to scheduling issues. The module is designed for four players, though, so we're set on that number for now. But my group has four people willing and able to run games, and a new game will come up eventually.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 12:41
|
|
|
I've done a fair bit of playing with random groups on roll20 because I enjoy variety. I'd say maybe 20% of them are good to amazing players, 20% are bad to abysmal players, and the rest are just some variety of dull and forgettable. I haven't played D&D with a random group, but I will say the few times I've ventured into D&D-likes like Stars Without Number the ratio has tended to skew much more towards the bad end of things, and I suspect the same would hold true for D&D itself too.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 14:29
|
|
|
Colonel Cool posted:I've done a fair bit of playing with random groups on roll20 because I enjoy variety. I'd say maybe 20% of them are good to amazing players, 20% are bad to abysmal players, and the rest are just some variety of dull and forgettable. I haven't played D&D with a random group, but I will say the few times I've ventured into D&D-likes like Stars Without Number the ratio has tended to skew much more towards the bad end of things, and I suspect the same would hold true for D&D itself too. True. D&D is holds this weird place in the hobby of being the first, but not the best, gateway into the hobby. There's about a dozen more player-friendly games I'd recommend to new players over even streamlined versions of D&D like 5E. But it's the industry titan and remains the default game for a ton of folks. Its past is also steeped in some of this toxic bullcrap, so between that and the path of least resistance for most players, bad players are going to gravitate toward it. That's not to knock 5E. I'm playing in a dungeon crawl of it right now and it's fantastic. But if not for its past, it should not or would not be the default game for randos.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 17:26
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:Overthrowing a government by feeding the people isn't a bad idea per se, but it is the kind of thing that puts the campaign on an entirely different track. I would love to play in a campaign where my group are the 'bad guys' because we broke the hegemony of the ownership class by overcoming their monopoly on the means of production. Having to fight off assassins hired by angry barons, marquesses, dukes, and kings because they can no longer threaten the third estate with starvation if they don't toil for them would be incredible.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 18:47
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:I would love to play in a campaign where my group are the 'bad guys' because we broke the hegemony of the ownership class by overcoming their monopoly on the means of production. Having to fight off assassins hired by angry barons, marquesses, dukes, and kings because they can no longer threaten the third estate with starvation if they don't toil for them would be incredible. As someone playing a halfling goth anarchist bard inspired by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, I am all in for this idea. I've started insisting that the party use the black flag icon in Roll20 for when I give them bardic inspiration. Smash the state. Only trust your (teeny tiny) fists.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 19:44
|
|
|
The Town Guard can't help you, trust only your fists. (Or sword/mace/staff/bow/implement of your choice.)
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 20:12
|
|
|
I've wanted to run/write a campaign taking place during the rise of syndicalism. Take the "Adventurer's Guild" premise and play it seriously. Have an enchanted sword worth half a barony? Here's where you can trade it in. Want that cockatrice disposed of? Standard rates, plus healing expenses. Local lord demands the spoils cause that ruined temple was on his land? This is a ROYAL charter, boys; you'll get your cut, and nothing more. Half the lords hate having armed hooligans sworn to no one running about their lands; the other half are glad to have disposable lunatics to go stabbing the dangerous stuff. I like the idea of a Witcher-like campaign setting where the PCs are set apart and Not Quite Like ordinary people, but actually doing one that didn't feed into murderhoboing would be hard.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 20:15
|
|
|
Cobalt-60 posted:I've wanted to run/write a campaign taking place during the rise of syndicalism. Take the "Adventurer's Guild" premise and play it seriously. Have an enchanted sword worth half a barony? Here's where you can trade it in. Want that cockatrice disposed of? Standard rates, plus healing expenses. Local lord demands the spoils cause that ruined temple was on his land? This is a ROYAL charter, boys; you'll get your cut, and nothing more. Half the lords hate having armed hooligans sworn to no one running about their lands; the other half are glad to have disposable lunatics to go stabbing the dangerous stuff. I like the idea of a Witcher-like campaign setting where the PCs are set apart and Not Quite Like ordinary people, but actually doing one that didn't feed into murderhoboing would be hard. You'd have to let people be suspicious and show the players that good reputation is important.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 20:25
|
|
|
Yeah, but how do you get people invested in your world and characters? Maybe I'm just cynical; the vast majority of people I've played with never saw NPCs as anything but quest dispensers or target practice - if they even remembered their names.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 21:24
|
|
|
I'm a proper goody-two-shoes blue eye in both RL and in game, and I can't be cruel to anyone except the obvious bad guys. I can play a venomous arsehole, but only with a heart of gold which is why I can never take the evil path in video games. I once played a sadly short-lived character who was a stunningly attractive elven bard who was completely indifferent to women and would cut vitriolic promos on the heels. He said that he wanted to just be a musician and spit bile and complain about everything that got in his way, but in the end he would always do the right thing and hope that nobody noticed. I've always liked good guys that aren't likeable, partially as a social commentary on the fact that people seem to care more about 'being nice' than 'being good'. The world is full of charming sociopaths. Another idea that we had that never got off the ground was for a sort of representative feudalism, where there was the typical baron/marquess/duke pyramid with each rank serving the higher and the higher ranks governing more territory, but they could be deposed by a Vote of No Confidence and someone else could be elected to fill the spot. Basic education for all, mostly literacy and numeracy, was required and people could vote on major civic projects, such as 'We're going to use that meadow to grow crops or let children play, not for the duke's 27 polo ponies'. We wanted the campaign to be based on nobles spreading misinformation to hide their illegal bullshit and we're the ones who are trying to bring it to light. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 21:39 on May 18, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 21:33
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:See this would have done it for me right here. Yeah no poo poo I want drama, it's a loving role-playing game. If all I want to do is make numbers pop up I can go play Skyrim whenever I turn on my computer. On the one hand I agree (although Skyrim may be played out!) but on the other, there is a bit of an odd dynamic in a player saying “I want you to persuade my character to do X, as otherwise he’ll do Y, and I know you don’t want him to do that and I don’t either but that’s what he would do.” Like, the character is presumably entirely aware of the fact that killing the guy will lose their lead on the real villains, and making his own decision not to kill him could easily be a dramatic moment too, especially when consequences come up later.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2021 22:13
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:The Town Guard can't help you, trust only your fists. (Or sword/mace/staff/bow/implement of your choice.) ACAB (All Constables Are Balors) Cobalt-60 posted:Yeah, but how do you get people invested in your world and characters? Maybe I'm just cynical; the vast majority of people I've played with never saw NPCs as anything but quest dispensers or target practice - if they even remembered their names. I'll ask for players to build an NPC or two into their backgrounds, whether I use them or not. They don't need to be central to the plot, but they're things I can hook plot threads onto to link PCs to larger plot action. Players will usually respond to the plot and setting with more good faith if they feel invested in it, and bluntly asking them to invest a tiny bit at the beginning can pay dividends later. Since that's more of a GM Advice Thread kind of thing, I can share a related running gag I have with someone in my group. It's kind of the opposite: we keep teasing each other as players when the other guy is running a game by overinvesting interest in unremarkable NPCs. It all started in a 7th Sea game years ago and I was playing a shapeshifting spy who was cunning but whose front was outwardly sweet and naive. The group had approached the manor of the villain, and encountered a Brute Squad outside the door. Brute Squads typically come in packs of six, and do not have individual stats. They are the gaggles of The Cardinal's men who get mowed down en masse by the musketeers or whatever. They do not have names, let alone biographies. But we wanted some intel about this manor and the people coming and going, so my character sidled up next to one of the brutes and tried to be friendly with him enough to pump him for information. I started asking his name, where we was from, if he has any brothers, and all sorts of other bullcrap that I knew the GM didn't possibly know for this literally nameless goon. He played along and made up poo poo for every increasingly inane detail. The other PCs started doing other stuff off to the side, increasingly using my character's chat as a diversion, so it wasn't for no reason. I eventually got his name, the names of his brothers and children and wife, the name of the street he grew up on, and the name of the church he attends. I asked for a lot of names, because the GM was increasingly struggling to come up with suitably German names. After a couple minutes of that, I let him off the hook, but kept that goon in my mental rolodex for NPCs to contact if we needed some info. "Hey! Let's go talk to Klaus! He's such a nice guy!" When it finally came to attacking the villain's manor months later, we ran into Klaus inside the building. He and his brute squad squared off against our group. We rolled five of them, and only Klaus was left. My character stared him down. "Klaus, my old friend. Do not do this thing." Klaus stared back blankly. "I know, Klaus. you don't need to say anything. It is hard to be pitted against such a close confidant. You can stand down. Your honor does not compel you to attack a dear friend." To my surprise, he did indeed stand down. (Certainly because he was outnumbered). Even better, the GM upgraded him to a henchman in later encounters. By sheer A year or so later, when I was running a homebrew post-apocalypse game, you can bet that same guy, now a player, made a point to single out some dumb raider for interrogation about his favorite food and hometown mascot and his mother's maiden name.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2021 00:02
|
|
|
hyphz posted:On the one hand I agree (although Skyrim may be played out!) but on the other, there is a bit of an odd dynamic in a player saying “I want you to persuade my character to do X, as otherwise he’ll do Y, and I know you don’t want him to do that and I don’t either but that’s what he would do.” I get what you are saying and I could see that someone could create a very disruptive character and justify doing any terrible thing because ‘that’s what my character would do’. But every step of the way Billy had been a team player. When the group wanted to save a village from marauding vikings despite not getting anything out of it he did. He used his telepathic powers to allow the group to co-ordinate a rescue mission saving people from being sacrificed to a giant squid. When they were shocked that he was killing armed attackers with his sword he made a point of making sure he kept people alive the next time they fought. Billy looked out for others and valued what they thought of him. But Billy’s whole motivation had to be avenge his dead friends and there was no real indication that anyone other than the rival gang leader was responsible. It was my suggestion that you could argue there were people above him that were truly responsible. Everything about Billy would drive him to slay his foe, but I’m not my character so sought a way to, within the narrative, avoid it by having Billy ask why he shouldn’t. I never even said that Billy ‘was’ attacking him, only that he would want to. The problem was that they couldn’t give Billy any reason, other than they didn’t want him to and would fight him to stop him. Their view was being presented as more correct than Billy’s without justification. And for context being in a feudal state meant the cop character had absolutely not authority there. I’d be onboard for Billy giving up his need for vengeance for the greater good (which is why I was repeatedly prompting them to give him a reason) but that wasn’t how it was presented. It was more like ‘why is your character so keen on killing this guy we’ve established as having killed all his friends? Can’t you just let the cop arrest him like he does with every other NPC?’ Also the gang leader was hardly the only lead we had, or at least we had no reason to suspect that he was. etheruk fucked around with this message at 00:39 on May 20, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 20, 2021 00:35
|
|
|
As a DM, I have often encountered situations where a situation that seemed simple to me was less so to players. Asking players to read your mind and come up with a solution can often lead to dissatisfaction. Usually, in cases like this I try to give them options. If the players are uncertain what to do, tell them 3 different ways you've imagined they could resolve the problem, and a brief rundown of each's pros and cons. You are no longer asking them to improvise a creative solution out of nowhere, but you are still empowering them to decide how things go forward. Offering options is generally an effective deescalation technique. It can also be very useful to ask the other players for their take on the situation that's getting them confused. Active listening, so you repeat back what they say in different words, make it really clear that you're paying attention, and ask clarifying questions. "Ah, I can see why that would be confusing. Sorry about that!" can be really handy for bringing the conversation to a point where they are willing to listen carefully as well. I work in civil service, and I've found that there's a lot of overlap in the skills you apply helping people there and keeping a D&D campaign running smoothly.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2021 17:14
|
|
|
For any given "puzzle" type scene, I will have at least three options (in D&D): 1. Combat. It might not be the best option, but you can always trust your fists. 2. DC10 Int/Wis check. Each successful player gets a clue to what I was thinking when I came up with this. If you have a relevant skill, you can roll that instead. 3+: The puzzle/riddle/etc. at hand. Think it through, get creative, pass through it with minimal resources spent. Between these I have never had any group get hopelessly stuck, since every group is going to have combat ability and/or skills and/or an int/wis-based character and/or someone who catches on to what stupid pun I have built this encounter around.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2021 18:38
|
|
|
Offering suggestions/options on what to do helps, especially when you have a lot of players or new players, to avoid paralysis, split parties, or "deer in headlights" looks. in my experience, people are fine with a campaign on rails, as long as they have some input. But you never know which way they'll actually go. For your consideration: Our intrepid party is exploring the Chultan jungle, on the trail of a previous party who had disappeared. After days pushing through random encounters, they come upon an abandoned village. Do they A) Search the huts, finding a clue as to where the other party went, B) Go to the ruined temple visible through the trees, making contact with a local spirit, C) Look around, find the path leading to a hut where a mysterious old lady will help them (or will she?), The answer is D) Cast Speak With Animals and start quizzing the monkeys. That was a...uniquely challenging session. Thank the gods for surprise pterafolk attacks. Cobalt-60 fucked around with this message at 23:31 on May 20, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 20, 2021 23:28
|
|
|
There's something terribly liberating about that moment you tell your GM that you just can't get engaged with this situation, and would like to just roll for your character to figure something out.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2021 00:35
|
|
|
avoraciopoctules posted:I work in civil service, and I've found that there's a lot of overlap in the skills you apply helping people there and keeping a D&D campaign running smoothly. Being a manager made me a better DM for sure, and I sometimes find myself using anti-railroading techniques when trying to help people figure out a path for themselves at work.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2021 00:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 13:37 |
|
|
I loving love dropping in a puzzle or weird situation without even really having a "canonical" solution in mind, and just running with whatever ideas the players cone up with that sound cool or letting their lines of questioning about the situation/environment inform an improv'ed solution.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2021 01:04
|
|